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Sunday, April 19, 2015

Pyrex Fairy Garden

Disclaimer: no vintage Pyrex was harmed in the making of this garden :)

My daughter Hannah is very much in to fairy gardens. Last year she made her own garden using some some of her own toys and doll furniture. Nightly she would check the garden in hopes that the fairies would come. Eventually the fairies did find her garden and they stayed around all summer - periodically leaving notes and treats for her. She was delighted with it all.

This season she is still interested in making a welcoming home for any fairies who may be traveling by. Luck would have it that I found out about a wonderful fairy garden making class at a local nursery and I signed Hannah up. At the class she had a great time creating a container fairy garden. After watching the professionals at the garden center show how to make a fairy garden, I took their ideas and decided to make my own version - but in a Pyrex bowl. I have a few extra yellow 404 bowls hanging around not being used and figured one of those bowls would be a great container for my new little garden.

Here are the supplies that you will need if you want to make one yourself. You could use a regular flowerpot or any other container that you have around.

1. Potting Soil

2. Plants. The folks at the nursery recommended having one small tree, a ground cover plant and a succulent. I chose Rosemary for my tree - which will grow larger and resemble a tree, Hens & Chicks for my succulent and a small-leaf ground covering called Baby's Tears/Golden Coins. At the garden center they had a whole assortment of plants sized just for fairy gardening. You can see the plant tag below shows a fairy on it. Choosing your plants needn't be complicated - just choose small-sized plants that won't grow very large.

3. Accessories to decorate your garden with.
Here is the fun part! Since fairy gardening is popular now most garden centers and large craft stores sell miniature items marketed for fairy gardening. Caution - most of the accessories are pricey and before you know it you have a small fortune spent in cute things for your garden. Be creative - I'm sure you can find many great things out in nature or in your home if you look around}

For our garden we used small pebbles (think fish tank), small pieces of wood to represent a walking path, a fairy statue & a ceramic toad stool. Other things you could use are sand, small glass pebbles found at the dollar store, miniature furniture, twigs, sea shells, sea glass, pebbles, small pieces of rock.

Here is how we made our garden.
1. I put some stones in the bottom of my bowl for water drainage since I didn't want to drill a hole in the bottom of my bowl. If you are using a standard flower pot with a hole in the bottom you can skip this step.

2. Next fill your pot with soil up to the rim. Pack it down.

3. Once the soil was in we laid out how we wanted the garden to look. Hannah made a pebble pathway through the center of the bowl. You could use stones, sand or small wood pieces here also.

4. Now add your plants. At the garden center they showed us how to cut the plants in half using scissors. I cut this one in half so that I could put it in two different spots.

5. Next add your fun accessories. The possibilities here are endless. There are so many things you could come up with for your garden.

Here are some pictures from our fun day at the nursery. The nursery we went to is Michael Bros. Nursery. If you are in the Pittsburgh area I highly recommend a trip. It is a beautiful family-owned nursery with a large selection of plants, green houses and a great shop. Website found HERE.

Hannah's garden has a lot of cute accessories. She has a little bridge, a mini bird bath and a mini gazing ball. She kept adding stuff that you can't even see the soil anymore! {pictures below}

These are some gardens that were on display at the nursery to give you an idea of what you can do. Each includes the small-sized plants and accessories. They are so cute.

5 comments:

This is perfect timing for me. My dad gave me the oldest wheel burrow in S. CA - rusty and filled with holes LOL - and I thought a fairy garden inside would just be perfect. Thank you for posting the tips and ideas! I also have 3 yellow bowls like yours - that I never use. And, I've been wondering what to do with them. Your granddaughter is adorable!

This is adorable and I think my granddaughter would get a kick out of doing this. She is only three but loves flowers. I am going to JoAnns tomorrow to pick up some goodies I saw there that would be ideal! Thanks for the tutorial! qltdiva1@fuse.net

What a FUN idea!! I love this. There is a booth that sells fairy gardens at Paris Street Market {my favorite summer time flea market around here} but I wouldn't have thought to make my own and put it in Pyrex. I'm going to have to try this now, with the girls. What a fun project. They look adorable. {And your daughter is beautiful!} {And I love your blog look.}

Katie Harley

Hi, I'm Katie Harley a.k.a KayteeJane and I have a passion for vintage! My favorite thing to do is hunt for treasures at thrift stores, estate sales and yard sales. I also enjoy crafting using my vintage finds. Here on my blog I will be sharing my collections, recent finds, display ideas, my craft projects and other fun things to inspire your love for vintage. Thanks for stopping by - I'm so glad you are here!